Now I’m totally sure that the Internet and has produced a swath of ignoramus hipsters who masquerade as if they are some mass of political and social informants. The truth is that it is easier to repost something on your social networking site of choice than actually do any research of your own.
Of course I am talking about the campaign against Joseph Kony, the Ugandan village witch doctor who, overnight, became an international pariah for everything that is wrong with the world.
Make no mistake – Kony is another African guerrilla warlord who is definitely messing up the world with his army of African children who are known for killing their own parents, raping their enemies, and causing other destruction across the third-world cesspool they live in.
However, that’s not what this article is ultimately about. My problem is with all the people who have allowed themselves to become so entranced by an Internet video which plays on emotions and tugs at your heartstrings.
Videos like this have been made with regards to events like 9/11, abortion, and other major social issues and the result is always the same: a new batch of dimwits who do nothing but click “Like” or repost a link to a video.
These people, who couldn’t even name where Uganda was a mere 24 hours before, now believe themselves to be experts on a subject which happen to just make its way into their field of vision.
Is this really what it has come to? Propaganda for the masses in a nice, delectable thirty-minute dose, which breaks the issues down to easily digestible black-and-white pieces for anyone to consume.
Even Invisible Children, the group who made the “Kony 2012” video, admitted in the Contra Costa Times earlier this year that their goal was to make a video which would “easily” explain the issue in Uganda, and CEO Ben Keesey himself has categorized the situation itself as “black and white.”
No situation is black and white, especially one that encourages support for a U.S. based invasion of an African country. And that is what the goal of this viral campaign is after all. I can’t help but remember the last time a justified invasion like this occurred – Iraq in 2003.
Remember those weapons of mass destruction we were looking for, which still to this day haven’t been found? I supported the invasion of Iraq, but it wasn’t because of the claim that there were weapons of mass destruction in the country.
I supported the war for the simple fact that Saddam Hussein had funded terrorism in the past in the form of paying money to Palestinian suicide bombers, and I thought it was a good idea to remove him from the equation. Whether or not you agree personally with my rationalization of the situation matters not.
The point is that I did my research on it, determined that there were no weapons of mass destruction (at least none that have ever been found), and still justified the war based on reasons important to me.
I did not let viral campaigns which are created solely to recruit more sheep to the cause influence my assessment of the situation. If you support and repost the anti-Kony campaign and all the viral videos and blogs attached to it, one question you must ask yourself is if you’re alright with an invasion of Uganda, and as of right now, I’m not sure I am. I don’t see any of the social networking crowd exploring this avenue.
The world would definitely be a better place without Joseph Kony in it, but the same could be said for guys like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as a plethora of others. These days it seems like the prevalent question is, “Who do we invade/depose next?” Little thought is given further than that.
Gerry Wachovsky is a graduate student and columnist for the Daily 49er.
